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What an IT Career Will Look Like 5 Years Out
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Paul Heltzel reports on the impact that IT's increasing reliance on the cloud for IT infrastructure will have on your career in the years ahead. "[O]ne fact is clear: Organizations of all stripes are increasingly moving IT infrastructure to the cloud. In fact, most IT pros who've pulled all-nighters, swapping in hard drives or upgrading systems while co-workers slept, probably won't recognize their offices' IT architecture — or the lack thereof — in five years. This shift will have a broad impact on IT's role in the future — how departments are structured (or broken up), who sets the technical vision (or follows it), and which skills rise to prominence (or fall away almost entirely)."
This is an IT Management issue that I am hoping someone will realize is a huge drain on the budget.
1) New IT manager arrives with vision of how he is going to improve IT
2) Hires new staff to realize that vision
3) Trains new staff. ($$$)
4) Is promoted in 2 to 3 years into a new higher position.
5) New IT Manager arrives with new vision of how he is going to improve IT
6) Decides the company needs "New Blood" in IT and proceeds to lay off old IT staff.
7) Hires new staff to realize that vision (In most cases paying %10-%30 more to get new staff due to salary changes over the years)
8) Trains new staff. ($$$)
9) Is promoted in 2 to 3 years into a new higher position.
10) Rinse and Repeat.
Each round you loose the knowledge of what was tried, and failed, before and what worked for the business need. I have seen new managers come into a company and decide to revamp the whole system with no review of ROI, TCO, or even the understanding that completely retooling the environment will be cost prohibitive.
It's not that we are denying it. It's that we have seen it before.
Windows NT was going to eliminate the need for corporate IT. It is so simple that the secretary can manage the system. (Yes, Microsoft sales used that as a selling point)
Central server management was going to eliminate corporate IT. It would be so simple you just have to hire a person to push a button and the problem is fixed.
Self Healing systems are going to eliminate the need for Corporate IT. The systems will detect an issue and heal without the need for IT personnel.
Outsourcing to India will eliminate the need for Corporate IT. You outsource all your systems and management to a data center and share the cost of the infrastructure while getting the best of the best to work on it.
Now, Clouds are going to eliminate the need for Corporate IT.
History shows that each has been wrong. Dont misunderstand, each did some small part of what they claimed but over time it all becomes more expensive and less productive.
Clouds are no different!
Having been in the job market myself recently, here's a few pointers...
Skills are good, accomplishments are better. The skills are usually just there to get you past the filter - once your resume is being read (not skimmed) by a human, the accomplishments are what will matter.
In the current market, integration and automation are the kings. If you think it can be done in the cloud, then assume it is being done in the cloud - and forget doing that as a job. The very best case will be that you integrate with it.
If you work in Windows environments, you need to brush up on PowerShell. If you work in *NIX, then you'd think bash/python/perl should be your focus - but I'd suggest you get familiar with puppet/chef etc., because I didn't see a single job that required *NIX skills that didn't also require or express an interest in using a puppet-like system to automate configurations.
There are some migration jobs out there - migrating users to O365 etc. Those jobs will pay bills for the next couple of years, but will dry up for obvious reasons. Feel free to take one in the short term, but keep looking for something else in the background if you do.
Otherwise, throw your skills into some search engines and see what happens.
Oh, and good luck. I hope you find a decent job...